How Many More Dead Trying to Prove Medicine Wrong?

Jessie "Boss Lee" Ward has passed away from stage 4 colon cancer recently. While any death is tragic, hers is noticeably so because she had chosen to squander her remaining time since diagnosis on "alternative treatments", and used it as a marketing opportunity. 

She was diagnosed in March, 2023. But instead of following the advice of her doctor, who allegedly told her that she'd be "dead by Christmas" without treatment, she decided to ignore all that advice, decided it's the just sales pitch (that she used to recruit 12000 downlines and hundreds of thousands of followers on social media). 

No, she will go with FOUR unproven therapies instead: hyperbaric oxygen chamber, "magnetic" treatment (whatever that is), "ozone treatment" (whatever that is), and "red-light treatment" (whatever that is). After surgery to remove bits of her intestine, that is. 

Basically, she decided to emulate Steve Jobs, and got the same results. 

For those of you who don't remember, Steve Jobs died back in 2011 of pancreatic cancer. It was actually diagnosed back in 2003, and even though his own family and his doctors urged him to cut it out ASAP, he chose to try eating vegan, take herbal remedies, and acupuncture. They did a CT scan 8 months later... it didn't work. By then, the cancer had spread. He finally had the surgery, but the operation didn't get it all, eventually leading to a liver transplant in 2009, and that only gave him a few extra years until 2011. 

Many doctors opined that Steve Jobs had the ONLY pancreatic cancer that's treatable and curable. By ignoring the available treatment, he had basically committed suicide. 

Jessie can't even claim that. If she operated immediately and do chemo, she may make it to 5 years, according to stories she shared. But instead, she claimed she didn't even gave chemo to her dog that had cancer. But no, she wants "holistic approach", which is just... quack med. 

Not unexpected, since she's also the VP of Pruvit, a "Ketone" health supplement MLM company. Selling stuff on little to no evidence is her bread and butter. 

Unfortunately, she sold woo to herself this time, and she paid the ultimate price. She didn't even make it to Christmas. 

How many more will die to prove that "alternative meds" don't work? 

Ironic COVIDiocy: Seven Antivax Doctors Contracted COVID after Attending Antivax Event in Florida

Seven antivax doctors attended an Ocala, Florida "summit" about alternative treatments for COVID, and caught COVID there, yet the organizer denied that the event was a superspreader event, according to The Guardian. 

One of those was Dr. Bruce Boros, 71. He claimed to be taking and prescribing Ivermectin for 16 months, and condemned his own 97-year-old father for getting vaccinated, as well as calling Dr. Fauci a fraud. When interviewed, he claimed he just wanted to help people. 

Remember, folks. Ivermectin is a weak nerve toxin to kill parasites. It has an extremely weak effect on COVID virus. If you take enough to affect the COVID virus, you'd die of IMV overdose first. 

No idea where did these doctors get the idea that Ivermectin is "working all around the world". The only study that showed definite results was withdrawn after people spotted falsified data. 

Don't be a COVIDiot. Just get vaccinated. 

COVIDiocy Conspiracy: Ivermectin Doctors are Making Big Bucks Off Antivaxxers

The Intercept, a sort of journalistic Wikileaks, has obtained data that shows right-wing doctors are making big bucks out of the right-wingers who were fed anti-vax disinformation. 

According to The Intercept, the group known as AFLDS (America's Frontline Doctors), best known for COVID-19 disinformation since the summer of 2020, referred many people to SpeakWithAnMD.com, a telemed platform based on Cadence Health. Each consultation is $90 for a call, where doctors "trained by AFLDS" prescribe non-sense meds like hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin, and if they got a prescription, they are delivered by Ravkoo. However, many patients paid but never got a callback. 

The data from Cadence Health and Ravkoo was obtained by an anonymous hacker who gave the data to the Intercept. 

The Intercept contacted Cadence Health, and it shut down quickly, claiming unwillingness to be profiting off COVID "quackery". 

It is worth noting that the head of AFLDS, Dr. Simone Gold, was arrested and charged for the January 6th Capitol Insurrection. Gold was well known for stating that COVID is not very deadly, and the COVID vaccine is more dangerous than the disease. Given that over 700000 Americans have DIED from COVID, and unvaccinated are 99% of the recent deaths, this is clearly wrong. 

According to the hacked data given to The Intercept, about 281K people paid 6.7 MILLION dollars in TWO MONTHS (between July and September 2021) for consultations with SpeakWithAnMD.com's "AFLDS trained doctors", and when shown this data, Cadence Health's CEO was flabbergasted, and terminated the contract with SpeakWithAnMD.com immediately. 

The same data also indicated that 340000 prescriptions were filled by Ravkoo between November 2020 and September 2021, worth about 8.5 MILLION dollars. Out of that, 46% were for ivermectin or hydroxychloroquine. NEITHER are valid treatments for COVID, as both are antiparasitic, not antiviral. Another 30% are for zinc or azithromycin, neither of which have an effect on COVID. That's more than 3/4 of all orders. When shown this data, Ravkoo CEO claimed he stopped doing business with AFLDS and SpeakwithAnMD.com at the end of August. When shown data that there are prescriptions from AFLDS in September, the Ravkoo CEO surmised that they are probably refills. 

The Intercept goes into details on the origins of AFLDS (it's funded by pro-Trump ultra-right Tea Party Patriots Foundation to counter FDA's cautious response to COVID), and into more details about how both AFLDS and SpeakWithAnMD's parent company reacted to the leak (by gathering a team of over a dozen lawyers). 

You can read the whole Intercept article here: https://theintercept.com/2021/09/28/covid-telehealth-hydroxychloroquine-ivermectin-hacked/

My thoughts: I was wondering WHY would AFLDS, and its fellow misinformers like FLCCC and BIRD misinform people like that. Turns out, there is a FINANCIAL incentive after all. 

I first encountered FLCCC when one of their doctors prescribed ivermectin to a COVID patient in an Ohio hospital OVER THE PHONE, where he doesn't even have privileges. The hospital refused to fill it, and the patient's wife sued, and a judge actually gave the wife a win, until another judge blocked it. 

What's interesting is FLCCC is NOT willing to stand behind its recommendations. Look at their own disclaimer:

Disclaimer can be summarized as you can't
blame FLCCC if you got sick and/or died

And AFLDS was reported by Time of taking the money and not even giving consultations, in an investigation that predated the hack given to Intercept. 

These people are essentially selling snake oil to fearful people, and using a doctor's white coat to do it. 

Don't be a COVIDiot and get swindled by these crooked quacks. 

Get vaxxed. It's that simple. 

More COVIDiots: can a judge "compel" a hospital to administer something that doesn't work? An Ohio judge just did...

Would YOU decide to take horse dewormer because somebody on the Internet told you it can cure COVID? 

Before you said yes, remember many months ago someone said the same thing about hydroxychloroquine? It was touted by no less than Trump himself. That did not work. 

So why would you expect ivermectin to work? It doesn't either. 

There is ONE study in Egypt with positive results for ivermectin that was NOT peer-reviewed. Then the publisher retracted the paper. Turns out there are SERIOUS problems with the data, where there are signs that data have been copied between patients, among other problems. The entire study cannot be trusted. 

You can guess what the antivaxxers did... Scream "censorship", never mind the details. 

So what is this about a judge? Hold one for one more thing...

Ivermectin CAN be used on humans... for a MUCH reduced dosage... for parasites. It can be used topically for head lice, or internally for "river blindness", and so on. It was so useful, the team that found the human use got the Nobel Prize in 2015. Again, it kills parasites, not viruses. 

Now onto the judge. 

In Ohio, a woman, Julie Smith, has her husband in the ICU for COVID since July 15th, 2021. Julie, found a Dr. Fred Wagshul, supposedly an expert in treating COVID with ivermectin, who was willing to prescribe her husband ivermectin. The hospital refused. Thus the lawsuit. 

We have determined above that most studies regarding ivermectin are either inconclusive or flawed. There is little evidence to suggest Ivermectin can prevent or treat COVID. Yet its proponents continue to claim the proof is "irrefutable" and such that it works. 

Just think about it. Ivermectin has NEVER before been formal trial tested in ANIMALS OR HUMANS for fighting a virus, muchless COVID, until very recently. Suddenly, it works wonders... then THAT study was found to be potentially fraudulent. So what's the conclusion? 

Logically, it should be "I'll have to wait and see, as there's no evidence that it really works. If it worked that well, I'd want to see some MORE proof. Extraordinary claim requires extraordinary evidence."

Indeed, that's the current Cochrane systematic review and meta-analysis of ivermectin and COVID conclusion based on all existing studies (will be updated as more studies are performed):

Based on the current very low- to low-certainty evidence, we are uncertain about the efficacy and safety of ivermectin used to treat or prevent COVID-19.

But now, just because some patient asked for this unproven treatment because she shopped for a doctor that will give it to her, does that means the hospital has to provide it? Apparently a judge decided that to be a "yes". Does a judge have the right to decide if a treatment is viable? Or can any patient walk into any hospital and demand a quack treatment just because she found a doctor willing to prescribe it? 

But hold on, it gets worse. 

The dose prescribed was "30 mg daily for 3 weeks". 

So what's a typical ivermectin dose? 

For intestinal deworming, the suggested dose is ONE, repeat ONE ONLY, dose of 200 mcg/kg. Assuming her husband is 100 kg (220 pounds), that's 20 mg dose.

This "doctor" has prescribed a dose 50% over that (30 mg), FOR 21 full days. 

Where did he even get this number? 

There is no science to his prescription. 

And I'll just leave you with this bit of news...

Anti-vax police Captain of Georgia town who touted ivermectin, taken quite a bit himself, and proud of his unvaccinated status, has died of COVID. 

Don't be a COVIDiot. Get vaccinated.